Free Republic

A former US military contractor who shot and killed a defenceless and handcuffed member of the Taleban walked free today after a judge decided he had been provoked by the Afghan’s brutality. The extraordinary case of Don Ayala, a former US Army Ranger...ended in a Virginia courtroom when he was sentenced to probation for the killing of Abdul Salam in November last year. US prosecutors...originally charged Alaya with murder....But the judge decided that probation was warranted under the circumstances. Alaya was also fined $12,500. Ayala had pleaded guilty to the voluntary manslaughter of Salam, an undercover member of the Taleban,...

WASHINGTON -- Don Ayala heard the explosion and saw the flames shoot into the sky above the narrow Afghan village street. Seconds later an Afghan man was running toward him, still trying to extinguish the fire on his arm. Soldiers in pursuit were yelling, "Stop that man!" and "Shoot him!" Ayala, a private security contractor, drew his weapon but didn't fire, later saying he feared hitting one of the soldiers or a member of the team of social scientists he was hired to protect. He managed to tackle the man with his free hand. The man resisted Ayala and two...

WASHINGTON -- The family of the social scientist who died after being attacked with a burning pitcher of gasoline in Afghanistan is asking a federal judge to be lenient with the New Orleans security contractor who apprehended and later shot and killed her attacker. Sentencing the man to prison "would be putting our family through even more anguish," said Paul Loyd, the brother of Paula Loyd, 36, who died in a San Antonio hospital two months after the attack that burned 60 percent of her body. Don Ayala, 46, who has lived in New Orleans for the past five or...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- An Army contractor is facing up to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the shooting death of a handcuffed Taliban member who had just set one of the contractor's colleagues on fire. Don M. Ayala, 46, of New Orleans, struck a plea bargain Tuesday in federal court in Alexandria, avoiding murder charges that could have resulted in life in prison. Ayala provided security on what the Army calls a Human Terrain Team, in which social scientists and anthropologists are embedded with combat brigades to help soldiers understand local culture. On Nov. 4, Ayala...

McLEAN, Va. -- An anthropologist has died of burns she got when was set on fire in Afghanistan in an attack that authorities say prompted her fellow contractor, a New Orleans resident, to kill an Afghan man. Greg Caires, a spokesman for military contractor BAE Systems, says Paula Loyd died Wednesday at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio more than two months after she was doused with fuel. The 36-year-old suffered burns over 60 percent of her body. Loyd's job with BAE was to help U.S. soldiers navigate local culture. One of Loyd's colleagues has been charged with second-degree...